Even in the USA ...

[bekdik]

http://www.wxpnews.com/

But even for cable companies, some argue that imposing low bandwidth caps as Time Warner is doing defeats the entire purpose of high capacity broadband service in the first place. With cable companies now offering residential Internet service with speeds of 10-12 Mbps, it doesn't take long to reach those bandwidth caps. What's the point of having such service if you can't use it without paying overage charges?

Deb Shinder's comments about capping sound very familiar ...

 

[lilGr]

The quote is so true...

 

[Just_Ice]

Good to see them following the african example!!...

 

[Mr_Kruger]

Good to see them following the african example!!...

I hope Europe will not follow too.

But I don't think so.

 

[HaltAndCatchFire]

You know what is going to happen, the world will need to start capping all of their users, we have always been capped, this means that we will miss the entire trend of cappless internet!

And you know what Telkom will say to ICASA," hey but the whole world is starting to cap, we have been doing so, so therefore we are following the world trend and capping is part of the internet as a whole!"

Then ICASA will say, "Eish ok, you must be right if the US of A is doing it we must do it look at our nice educational system that was taken from an abandoned US system, MacDonald's and Chevy, so like Wow dudes lets all cap!"

 

[Mr_Kruger]

I think the real reason is, that USA have a very weak digital infrastructure.

They surely have high bandwidth connection to the end user, but their backbone network appears to be very weakly.

Here a list of Internet Exchange Points by size:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_Exchange_Points_by_size

TOP20:
13x Europe
4x Asia
3x USA

OK... there are listet not all USA IXPs, but is that a fortuity?

My speedtest.net results to USA are very badly:
Washington: ~ 5,8 mpbs
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286384441.png
New York: ~7,5 mbps
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286384660.png
Atlanta: ~8,6 mbps
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286385206.png
Los Angeles: ~3,8 mbps
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286385454.png
San Francisco: ~6,9 mbps
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286385669.png
Anchorage: ~4,6mbps
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286386004.png

average USA: 6,2 mbps

Intercontinental sea cables are there enough:
http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_cable/TG_CableMap_1200x1600.jpg

New Zealand: ~7,4 mpbs @ 11500 miles distance! LOL
http://www.speedtest.net/result/281242495.png

Johannesburg: ~7,8 mbps
http://www.speedtest.net/result/281244976.png

Only speed to Far East Asia is worse:
Tokyo: 2,2 mbps
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286396872.png
China: 0,5 mbps
http://www.speedtest.net/result/286397570.png

But there is no direct connection to Europe.


USA internet backbones are crap and can't sustain the worldwide huge rise of internet traffic.
So they have to cap power users now.
Or why they should cap internet traffic else?

Fortunately that's not conceivably in Europe.

 

[boramk]

The USA will solve the problem anyway.

Thats the difference between a 1st world country and an African country

 

[Mr_Kruger]

The USA will solve the problem anyway.

I don't think so.
American ISPs are greedy to make MONEY, not to invest.
Capping the traffic is cheaper than investing in new infrastructure.

The USA will solve the problem anyway.

Thats the difference between a 1st world country and an African country

South Africa = 1st world

 

[LancelotSA]

Another interesting point is made there...

People often mention when the subjects of caps are brought up that at least the US has large caps when compared to us but this is really all relative when looked at in relation to the speeds they have! Those 50Gbs are not going to last too long at 10Mbps!

Something I have pondered when it comes to caps.... what I have found is when I have excess bandwidth at the end of the month, I really do just download any old cr_p just to use up what I feel is mine. I currently do this with my 20Gbs local... so give me 50Gb cap and i will try to do it with that too. I know some of you will claim you only download what you really need but if we were to be honest, as stated in the Time Warner argument, most users get by just fine with under 10Gb per month. It is only us greedy bastards that want more... and it is those milking the system and downloading 100Gbs per month that are ruining it for everyone....

 

[boramk]

It is only us greedy bastards that want more... and it is those milking the system and downloading 100Gbs per month that are ruining it for everyone....

Did you know that in countries which offer uncapped on average:

10% of the internet users account for 90% of the bandwidth